Persuasive Essay: Tips and Tricks

The persuasive essay is a kind of essay paper in which your reader needs to be convinced. You may have noticed that persuasion is a tough work even in eye-to-eye talks. To make your main thread of meaning in the essay stand out when you do not have any possibility to examine your opponent or listener is even harder. Do not worry though, because in this article we will show you how to do it.

Introducing This Type of Essay

Let us talk a little more about this type of essay. Mostly a text can be called persuasive when it includes rational, logical arguments which are all related to one main point. Moreover, in such essays you do not have any kind of intrigue as you may have in descriptive or expository essays. Here the main point is told at the very beginning of the text.

Sometimes though the structure of the arguments is built in such way that the reader can clearly understand the main point in the very end. This type of structure, when you put what you want to prove in the end, is much harder and not for newbies.

Nevertheless, no matter which kind you will choose, you should understand the main issue of your text. You should convince someone. You should take a questionable case and show the best way out of it, so that no one will ever think of another point of view on this question.

That is why you literally must introduce the theme of the issue in the beginning. Only then you need to make up your mind whether you want to present your point of view right away and then prove it by reasoning or to try to lead the reader’s thought to it with the help of the arguments.

Main Point

There are a lot of different topics which are interesting and spark debate. Sadly, but you cannot choose any of them when you need to hand in a persuasive essay. You will ask why?

Here is the reason: your main statement should be really strong and persuasive. That means that you should know all the ins and outs of this subject and you should have some aces in the form of good arguments in your sleeve. It means that it is not a good idea to write such essays on such abstract subjects as God, love and so on.

However, any problem always has more than one explanation and we cannot be sure which position is 100% correct even in such specific things such as construction, manufacturing and so on. That is why you really can write about whatever you want, because anyway someone will find a way to show that your position is doubtful if they want. The thing is that you need to choose the topic only depending on your preparation to fight for your truth. If even you are not sure that your position is correct, then what is the point to persuade others? We will repeat the first step for you: Find a problem and provide a solution for it, which is clear and correct to you.

Looking for Arguments

The second thing is the argumentation. There are such cases when you are entirely sure about truthfulness of some information, but this knowledge is based rather on your intuition. You know that you are right, but you do not know how to prove it.

This kind of situation often happens in real life to many people. Its source is media, school and society in general. When you live in a certain state, read certain books or newspapers, communicate with certain people you can absorb a lot of unfounded beliefs. These beliefs are the beliefs of your cultural surroundings, but you perceive them as your own. People even fight for such beliefs and defend them with ardor, never asking themselves why they really think so.

That is why the crucial step of composing a persuasive essay is the time when you think of arguments. It may sometimes open your eyes and make you see some questions, widen up your worldview. When you decided what you want to talk about, check your premises, which make you come to such a conclusion. If you find them weak and easily doubted, take time to search for better evidence to prove your statement.

Here are some tips for a good reasoning: – Your arguments should be clear and understandable. – You should define your target audience and construct the argumentation in the way that will affect them. – In case you are writing for an academic or scientifically oriented group of people, you should use only logical arguments without empirical evidence, as it is understandable by default. – If your essay concerns ordinary people, you should use more facts from science or real life. People do not always like to think a lot, so if you help them just with easy examples, you may easily prove that your point is right.

Strengthening Your Position

When you have found several good points which will help you to convince the reader of your opinion, you should strengthen your essay by structuring it in a strong way. It means that you should check your premises and conclusion and define the priorities: which to put first and which to put second.

It may help if you read some literature on rhetoric. Sure, you will not present a speech in front of the audience in real time, but in the essay your reader can be compared to a vast audience. In those books you can find different ways of structuring your argumentation. Choose the type which can represent your point in the best way.

Checking the Arguments

The last thing in the creation process is to check whether it “works”. The first thing to do is to read it by yourself. While reading, try to analyze your argumentation and look for some gaps in it. If you find certain weak or irrelevant arguments, feel free to erase or replace them. Then comes the most important part. Find a friend who does not agree with you about the main question of your essay and let him or her read it. In case they now have doubts in their previous position, you can make a conclusion that your essay has done its job and is ready to be sent wherever it is needed.